The Financial Conduct Authority has appointed four senior directors, as part of the “substantial restructure” of the City watchdog.

The regulator has appointed Stephanie Cohen as chief operating officer, Jessica Rusu joins as its first chief data, information and intelligence officer, Sarah Pritchard becomes executive director, markets and Emily Shepperd take up the newly created role of executive director, authorisations.

The move follows the merger of the FCA’s two existing supervision divisions with its policy and competition functions, last November.

New FCA chief executive Nikhil Rathi called the merger “a substantial restructuring of our existing senior management responsibilities for consumer outcomes”.

That restructure came just a month after Rathi had been appointed, replacing new Bank of England governor Andrew Bailey.

The FCA has faced criticism for its lack of oversight of investment firm London Capital & Finance, which collapsed in 2019 owing £236m to 11,000 investors.

Rathi says today’s appointments will strengthen the new-look regulator.

The FCA head says: “I am delighted to be welcoming Stephanie, Jessica, Sarah and Emily into the FCA to be part of our executive leadership team. They bring with them a deep understanding of the consumers we seek to protect, the markets we oversee, and all have track records for operational excellence.”

The FCA says Cohen will be responsible for its operations and business performance, systems and infrastructure, and finances.

It adds she “will play a central part in the FCA’s transformation, taking the lead on operational changes to make the FCA more efficient, dynamic, and technologically driven”.

Cohen has over two decades of experience in large financial firms, including 14 years at US investment house BlackRock, where she was the global chief operating officer for the active equity businesses and the alpha strategies division, comprising active equities and fixed income.

Rusu will lead the transformation of the body’s use of data, intelligence and information to effectively oversee the 60,000 firms it regulates, says the FCA.

It adds, she “will evolve the FCA’s relationship with big tech companies, fintechs and the wider data science community”.

Prior to her new role, Rusu was chief data officer at Chetwood Financial, a digital challenger bank. She was also a senior director of finance and analytics at eBay in Europe, where she helped build its advanced analytics and customer insight function.

The FCA says Pritchard will be responsible for market integrity in its combined Supervision, Policy and Competition division.

Pritchard joins from the National Economic Crime Centre, where she is a director. Prior to that, she worked in a range of government and private sector roles, including risk and compliance at HSBC.

The watchdog says Sheppard will oversee its authorisations, “which is the gateway for firms and individuals applying to undertake regulated financial services activity”.

She was most recently director of customer services and change at pensions group Aegon UK, and before that was EMEA chief operating officer for Bank of New York Mellon.

Sheppard takes up her new post in March, while Cohen, Rusu and Pritchard join the FCA in June.

Rathi says: “As we continue transforming the FCA — building a data-led regulator — their global experience and leadership, drawn from a variety of backgrounds, will be vital in ensuring we can act more quickly to reduce harm to consumers and ensure market integrity.”